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Ring Lardner Jr., the son of the famous journalist and humorist, Ring Lardner, was born on 19th August, 1915. After being educated at Princeton University he became a reporter on the New York Daily Mirror.

Lardner moved to Hollywood where he worked as a publicist and script doctor before writing his own material. This included Woman of the Year, a film that won an Academy Award for the best screenplay in 1942. Other notable scripts include Laura (1944), Brotherhood of Man (1946) and Forever Amber (1947).

Lardner held strong left-wing views and during the Spanish Civil War he helped raise funds for the Republican cause. He was also involved in organizing anti-fascist demonstrations. Although his political involvement upset the owners of the film studios, he continued to be given work and in 1947 became one of the highest paid scriptwriters in Hollywood when he signed a contract with Fox at $2,000 a week.

After the Second World War the House Un-American Activities Committee began an investigation into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry. In September 1947, the HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named several people who they accused of holding left-wing views.

Lardner appeared before the HUAC on 30th October, 1947, but like Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Samuel Ornitz and John Howard Lawson, he refused to answer any questions. Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution gave them the right to do this. The House Un-American Activities Committee and the courts during appeals disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of Congress and Lardner was sentenced to twelve months in Danbury Prison and fined $1,000. Lardner was sacked by Fox on 28th October, 1947.

Blacklisted by the Hollywood studios, Lardner worked for the next couple of years on the novel, The Ecstasy of Owen Muir (1954). He also wrote under several pseudonyms before the blacklist was lifted. Lardner's later work included The Cincinnati Kid (1965), M*A*S*H (1970), for which he won another Academy Award, and The Greatest (1977). Ring Lardner Jr died in 31st October 2000.

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(1) Ronald Bergan, The Guardian (4th November, 2000)

In 1947, Hollywood became the subject of a fullscale investigation by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC). Ten "unfriendly" witnesses - producers, directors and writers - refused to answer the question, "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?", choosing to regard the committee as unconstitutional, and were thus indicted and imprisoned for contempt of the US Congress.

Ring Lardner Jr, who has died aged 85, was the last surviving member of the Hollywood 10. The other nine were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo and Edward Dmytryk. Only Dmytryk co-operated with the committee, and named names, including Lardner's; after serving their sentences, the other nine were blacklisted.

Lardner had been recruited by the Communist party in Hollywood in 1937. He later became a member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, the Citizens Committee for the Defence of Mexican-American Youth, the Hollywood Writers Mobilisation Against the War and the board of the Screen Writers Guild, all tainted with the "red" brush.

Although Lardner allowed his party membership to lapse, he still said, in Moscow, in 1987: "I've never regretted my association with communism. I still think that some form of socialism is a more rational way to organise a society, but I recognise it hasn't worked anywhere yet."

Lardner Jr was born in Chicago, the son of Ring Lardner, one of America's greatest humorists, and joined the socialist club while studying at Princeton. After his second year, he travelled to the Soviet Union - and was impressed. In 1935, he returned to New York, aged 20, where he worked as a reporter before going to Hollywood as a publicist for David O Selznick's new film company.

Soon afterwards, Selznick secretly asked Lardner and Budd Schulberg, a young man in the story department, to rewrite several scenes in William Wellman's A Star Is Born (1937). Although not credited, they are said to have come up with some of the best lines - such as the publicity agent's remark after the alcoholic actor Norman Maine (Fredric March) has drowned: "How do you wire congratulations to the Pacific Ocean?" Lardner also contributed - uncredited again - to the dialogue in Wellman's acerbic comedy, Nothing Sacred (1937).

His first screen credits were as co-writer on two films in the folksy medical series, Dr Christian. But his breakthrough came with the script for George Stevens's Woman Of The Year (1942), about the love-hate marriage of a sophisticated political columnist and a gruff sportswriter, based on Lardner Sr's relationship with Dorothy Parker. The first - and one of the best - of the nine Katherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy films, emphasised the feminist angle until the ending (rewritten by Michael Kanin), in which Hepburn's character submits to domesticity to keep the man she loves. It won Lardner (with Kanin) his first Oscar for best original screenplay.

After wartime army service, Lardner co-wrote three po-faced anti-Nazi screenplays: The Cross Of Lorraine (1944), Tomorrow The World (1944) and Cloak And Dagger (1946).

In 1947, Lardner signed a lucrative contract with 20th-Century Fox to write Forever Amber, from Kathleen Winsor's bodice-ripper about a poor girl (Linda Darnell) who sleeps her way to Charles II. However, due to the censorship of the time, Lardner and his co-writers had to suggest, rather than show, eroticism.

Then came his HUAC appearance. When he was asked if he was or ever had been a communist, Lardner replied: "I could answer the question exactly the way you want, but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning."

After nine months in prison, and unable to work in Hollywood, Lardner eventually found work in London, contributing to the 1950s television series, The Adventures Of Robin Hood. Like several other blacklisted writers, he was forced to use a pseudonym to allow for American sales. The British-made Virgin Island (1958) credits "Philip Rush" with the screenplay, although a British historian of the same name wrote to the Times refuting any connection with the mediocre movie.

Rehabilitation came in 1965, when Norman Jewison got Lardner and Terry Southern to deliver a cracking script for the stud-poker classic The Cincinnati Kid, starring Steve McQueen. Writing under his own name again revitalised Lardner, and the iconoclastic, anti-war satire M*A*S*H (1970) found him at his peak. Robert Altman's film struck a chord with young audiences, who saw the Korean war setting as a reference to Vietnam.

One of the last films Lardner wrote was The Greatest (1977), in which Muhammad Ali played himself. Although most of the work is innocuous, the screenplay still has the courage to include Malcolm X's line, "A white man is a blue-eyed devil", and Ali's protest against the Vietnam war: "No Vietcong ever called me nigger".

In later years, Lardner wrote two novels; his memoir, I'd Hate Myself In The Morning, is to be published posthumously. He first married Selznick's secretary, Sylvia Schulman, whom he divorced, and then Frances Chaney, the widow of his brother David, who was killed by a landmine in Germany while reporting the Second World War for the New Yorker. She survives him, as do three sons and two daughters.

 

(2) Emily Farache, E-Online (1st November, 2000)

Ring Lardner Jr., the last surviving member of the Hollywood 10, a group of screenwriters who were jailed and blacklisted during the Joseph McCarthy era, died of cancer Tuesday in New York City. He was 85. Lardner won two Oscars for his screenplay work, but he is best remembered for refusing to answer questions demanded of him at the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.

When Representative J. Parnell Thomas, the chairman of the committee, demanded to know if Mr. Lardner was or ever had been a Communist, Lardner hesitated before answering. Lardner was a Communist, but he felt that his political inclinations were none of the government's business.

"I could answer the question exactly the way you want," Lardner replied, "but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning." An angry Thomas had him removed from the witness stand.

He was eventually jailed with nine others: Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Lardner served about nine months in prison in the 1950s, and then worked in Mexico, New York and London writing TV series. He used various pen names to conceal his identity until the 1960s.

Before the Communist witch hunts, Lardner shared an Academy Award for best original screenplay with Michael Kanin in 1942 for Woman of the Year, a comedy that marked the first teaming of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. In 1970, after the blacklist was lifted, he received an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for M*A*S*H.

This past August, the Writers Guild of America finally restored the credits of blacklisted writers on 1950s and 1960s films, crediting Lardner and Hugo Butler for The Big Night, a 1951 film noir starring John Drew Barrymore.

The son of sportswriting legend Ring Lardner, Lardner was born in Chicago and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Great Neck, New York. He is survived by his wife, Frances Chaney, and three sons.

Lardner discovered socialism while studying at Princeton. After his sophomore year, he enrolled at the Anglo-American Institute of the University of Moscow, a center established to encourage young Americans to support the Soviet system.

When Lardner returned to Moscow in 1987, he told The New York Times, "I've never regretted my association with Communism. I still think that some form of socialism is a more rational way to organize a society, but I recognize it hasn't worked anywhere yet."

 

(3) BBC Online News (2nd November, 2000)

Ring Lardner Jr, the double Oscar winner and last of the Hollywood Ten, has died of cancer aged 85. The screenwriter was the last surviving member of the band of 10 writers and directors who were jailed and blacklisted in Hollywood during the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

Ring Lardner Jr won two Oscars in a career spanning more than 50 years Lardner and others were called to the stand to answer the infamous query, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?". The writer was indeed a communist but believed that his political views were none of the government's business.

"I could answer the question exactly the way you want," Lardner said under questioning in 1947 from J Parnell Thomas, a republican representative. He added: "But if I did, I would hate myself in the morning."

He and 10 others refused to answer the question while some, such as director Elia Kazan, named names. Lardner was jailed for nine months in the 1950s because of his refusal to answer questions about his politics. From 1947 to the 1960s he found it almost impossible to find work in the US and was forced to look abroad or use pseudonyms to work in Hollywood.

Earlier this year, the Writers Guild of America corrected the credits of eight blacklisted writers on 14 films from the 1950s and 1960s. A film about the events of the period, One of the Hollywood Ten, is in production and stars Jeff Goldblum and Greta Scacchi.

 

 

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